The Light of Fading Days
by Ananke
Summary: AU, post season three finale. A Nietzschean and his pride greet the sunset.


--

Disclaimer: _Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda_ and all related characters property of Tribune Entertainment. No copyright infringement is intended.

Author's Note: This is set post-season three finale, _Shadows Cast By a Final Salute_, some years afterward.

---

_ "And he said, "I want to live as an honest man_

_To get all I deserve and to give all I can_

_And to love a young woman who I don't understand" _

_-Susan Vega_

---

Heels planted firmly on the dark tile of his Hall, Tyr Anasazi flexed both hands tiredly, finally bringing them to rest against wool clad thighs. The absent bone spurs had been an unfortunate fact for some time, yet a hollow ache had always seemed to replace them during winter months. Now, it seemed, he was so battle wearied that even summer provided no respite. They were ghost limbs, severed haunting, perhaps.

He summoned dignity with quiet force, taking in the jaundiced complexion and sweat-slick honey hair his companion evidenced. The boy was something of a disappointment…aside from bone spurs, little existed within the small frame to suggest Nietzschean ancestry, much less proud Anasazi blood. His youngest cub was, perhaps, his greatest liability. Still, the youngest Bedouin was and the most needful as well, and as Seamus Harper had proven, Tyr Anasazi had always been self-effacingly mindful of the inferior and needy.

Running a hand along his stubbled face, the leader of pride Dragonia and grandfather to the new Nietzschean Empire chuckled in sudden amusement. Seamus Harper he saw in brief and astounding flares of recollection, the pitiful kludge he had managed to dismiss from mind for...far too long.

_You made me laugh again, little man. _Swallowing the thought, he straightened once more, willing bent shoulders to stand strong under the fur clasped about his throat. It wouldn't do to bow before a guest. Not the guest he fully expected to be forthcoming. 

The Nietzschean wondered at her sudden shift in attitude, at her willingness to cross neutral territory to crouch within the enemy's lair. They had not parted well aboard the Andromeda, not well at all, and the few reunions had been mutual gatherings of anger and recrimination…passionate recrimination.

When his missive had been sent out, he had not actually dared to suppose it would prove anything more than…part of Mr. Harper's junk collection, perhaps. The acknowledgment sent in turn and signed by Valentine had been startling; the news that she was headed forth had been both a relief and concern.

A small and thoroughly inconspicuous door opened suddenly several feet beyond; he did not start. Only trusted associates of his family knew the many and myriad ways to enter Anasazi's lair beyond the guest gateway, none were yet part of a large enough whole to believe guilt or pandering of security leaks could be missed by their patriarch.

The intruder proved Jorja, the young redhead he had taken as wife more than five years ago. Her pride held no great connections, had always been only of minute value to his cause, yet they had hoped to forge a strong link to the future, create fine children. Jorja's children had never come to be, the boy before him had. She had never forgiven.

"The mercenary is here." She informed him coolly, eyes climbing over the bundled heap of child and on to focus on a far wall. _Mercenary…on a jealous tongue, the word suddenly seemed epithet._

"We are all mercenaries to fate, my dear." Anasazi pointed out quietly.

Brows arching, Jorja only bowed acknowledgment, stepping back out and shutting the door softly as a clatter rose from the other entrance.

As if in answer to an unspoken summons the great hall doors fell open as he stepped towards them, blinding beams of golden light sliding in and pooling in corners long undusted. The figure who strode from the mist carried herself elegantly, confidently. Anasazi could not help but note the hand resting upon a weapon under the dark jacket and the distrust held in blue eyes. He had often been shamefully lost in those eyes, even if she had never known.

"No guard?" Beka Valentine asked with measured skepticism, moving forward to stand only inches beyond the chaise on which lay his son. Streaked blonde hair pooled about the woman's shoulders as she bent to take in the huddle of boy and cover, brows lifted.

"I have found none that I would trust." Stilling his movements by sheer will, the Nietzschean examined his former crewmate in more detail as she turned to face him. 

"With Bobby's life or yours?" Valentine moved to stand toe to toe with him. 

"The Bedouin were some of the more oddly tenacious cultures of Terran history." He inserted casually, moving to the nearby wall bar to retrieve two drinks. She accepted hers with a shrug, tasting gingerly. "Any member of their group would no doubt have proven more admirable a namesake than your unfortunately unstable friend."

"I'm surprised that you cared enough to rename him." Angling an arm over a chair arm as she sat, Beka glanced back over at the sleeping child, face a mask of indifference. "I thought I might be sending him to his execution when I had him brought to you. The inferior kludge blood he inherited from me, and all that."

"You wanted him gone from your life so deeply?"

"Hell no, Tyr." Tones icing, she swiveled her head to glare. "But I was in no position to keep a kid. Thanks to your little empire, we were taking not so small pot shots every day. A lot of them we barely survived. Some of us didn't."

"The _Andromeda Ascendent_ was never approved as a Nietzschean target." He shot back, eyes narrowing.

"No shit, that wouldn't just have been arrogance; it would have been stupid arrogance. No, there were no orders, but then you and your kind have never exactly held to requiring orders to bully." Legs uncrossing, she leaned forward, jaw clenching slightly. "You haven't exactly played good cop for us."

"As I recall, you were raised quite successfully under less than peaceful shipboard conditions."

"I wouldn't call it success. Look where I am. I wanted him…" A hand flew out to point out the boy. "I wanted him to have more. After he was born I talked to orphanages, High Guard planet bounds. It never seemed right. They weren't comfortable with the bone spurs and all implied. I was afraid that they would never understand him, no more than I ever would have. So I sent him to his own, hoped there was enough of it to make him acceptable." 

"You could have brought him personally, and stayed." He noted softly, aching eyes blurring as sunlight fell into dusk. 

"I don't belong among your kind, Tyr."

"You belong more than I ever would have suspected. More than I suppose you ever have wanted." Fingers separating fretted braids, the Nietzschean contemplated his companion…his friend, the mother of his second and last child…with pity mired in respect. "Bedouin had many medical tests when he arrived. I had to insure that he was of my blood before his worth to the pride could even be considered of issue. I was somewhat startled to discover three quarters of Nietzschean blood in those frail veins."

Her lips pursed, hands growing rigid on bent knees.

"Were you even aware?"

Harsh laughter echoed through the room, causing the child to stir briefly. Moving to stand, Valentine smoothed a lock of honey and oil hair back, a pale hand brushing across caramel skin as she spoke. "Not until. I mean, Nietzscheans and pure old humans aren't typically compatible reproductively, Tyr. My sex life wasn't exactly making waves. I knew who had to be the father when I was diagnosed as a preggie. Trance was ready to declare me a veritable medical miracle, but decided to do more detailed medical tests on me too. You know how I always avoided those?"

"Of course."

"I hate doctors; always have since I was a kid…more a mental block than a phobia. My Dad always said I had a rough surgery when young, didn't forget it." Rolling the sleeves of her dark jacket up, Beka held up both wrists in show. "I was very young; it was a good surgery. Trance found trace scars where the blades were removed. According to Sid there was some gene resequencing done before I was born to mask my DNA on a basic level, but the blades stuck around until afterward."

"Your father and his weaknesses were obviously human. You never came to differentiate between your mother and him?"

"As far as I ever knew, my mother and my father were two halves of the same soul….and she kept her own bone blades in a jewelry box. It was scary to a kid, but she laughed about it and managed to lie easily enough to us about the matter, said they were from her first Niet kill."

"And she was proud of this 'kill'? Was it a very human pride?"

"How can I say? I don't really know who she was." Standing, the blonde paced. "I don't understand her, Tyr, I never did. I realize that now that I'm looking back from the perspective of years. My mother was beautiful. She was inhumanely perfect. But who was she? What pride did she abandon, and why would she marry a man like my father, a mercenary kludge with an addiction? How could she have overcome her Nietzschean heritage enough to not only marry the guy, but go to the trouble to give him two kids? Do you realize the number of fertility treatments it would have taken for a full Niet to reproduce with a human? She was so damned generous, so damned…perfect. How could he have ever measured up? How could _we_ have ever measured up, Rafe and I?"

"Perhaps she never expected you to. In your case, at least, I believe she would have been severely and pleasantly surprised."

"The time when flattery like that would have worked on me is long gone. You've won, Tyr. Don't you get it?" Tones vehement and tired, she paused, staring at Bedouin. "Everywhere we turn there's your mark, the Nietzschean mark. There's always a little more proof that Tyr Anasazi has risen above the great Captain Hunt and his Commonwealth. When I sleep I dream of my Nietzschean son and the first thing I see in the morning when I look in the mirror is the nonexistent bone blades I could have gone a lifetime never missing if not for the secrets you stirred up. But in many ways they do exist, a constant phantom ache. In a hundred ways, you've made me question everything I've ever known, ever believed in. There'll be a deciding battle soon and for the first time in my life I haven't a single idea which side I'm on, which side is my side, or if I have a place at all."

"It is your belief that had you had not conceived my child you would never have been forced to question your own…already quite shady, I might add…heritage." Standing once more, Anasazi moved to place a hand on a stiff shoulder. 

She scarcely glanced at the hand before shrugging away, arms lifting in exasperation. "Exactly, Tyr. I'm good at avoiding in depth medical exams. There were so many things about my folks and their lives I never wanted to know, would never have dreamed of investigating. Not after Sid, not after Rafe. Until we reunited at that drift that final time and our little mistake happened, I was happy being just human Beka, just a survivor. I belonged on the Andromeda, among our mixed crew. Couldn't possibly have felt more out of place than anyone else, and I was happy with that…crazy niche."

"No, you were resigned. After a fashion, you became anything but. You would eventually have begun questioning your place in the universe with or without Nietzschean spawn, Rebekah."

"Are we trading experiences again? If not for Tamerlane, could you have remained happy aboard the Andromeda?" Tones lowering, softening, Beka met his gaze with unflinching pity. "Of course you could have. You would have forgotten your dreams of taking over the universe sooner or later, pushed them aside, accepted what Dylan offered and enjoyed it. But Tamerlane did come, the incarnate spawn, his father's darling…" She stilled, expression growing cold and distant once more. "Just what is Bobby is to you? Does he have a place or is he just…what exactly is he to you, Tyr?"

"The wanderer, the seeker. Tamerlane out of Freya is the warrior; Bedouin out of Rebekah will be the poet, the soul. Together they will prove Nietzschean salvation." Stilling, Tyr Anasazi stared out the nearby gallery windows, taking in the dying sunset beyond. "It is a pity I will not live to see it, but perhaps my death will at least provide Dylan some of the peace which he has so fervently and vainly sought."

"We ran into Tamerlane a few days ago. He seemed fairly confident that you'd be at the head of the pack when war broke between his guys and the Commonwealth fleet."

"Perhaps I will be. Perhaps I will die first."

"Now that…" She reprimanded sarcastically. "…isn't very Nietzschean. I could teach better survival traits."

"A wise Nietzschean father knows well when his day has passed."

"But a stubborn hybrid woman never admits it." Reaching up, she tangled a hand in the long, gray threaded braids trailing he wore. "After all the trouble you went to just shaping this universe in your image, all the hell you raised, you're just ready to buy the farm? Damn, Tyr, it can't be so soon."

"Soon?" Laughter rumbled up. "Rebekah, Dylan and I, you and I, we have been playing this game of good and evil…this rather silly and charming game…for the better part of two decades. Tamerlane is a man now, and it is his right to now pursue the destiny to which he was born. I…as well as the venerable Dylan Hunt and his Commonwealth…will serve no place in that destiny. I cannot say it is what I would have imagined or desired all that time ago…but things are as they are, and I am far too old to change them."

"Tamerlane's universe won't be a kind one. We have to fight him. We _will_ fight him. You can play pitiable martyr but Dylan isn't going to surrender…"

"Of course Dylan will surrender. Not in battle or by any official courtesy, but spiritually the good Captain Hunt well knows the war is lost before begun. I have no doubt that he is as exhausted by this as I am. And wise enough at long last to accept the things that we cannot change. Perhaps he will die as well, perhaps we will die together, and the cockroaches will laugh at the both of us. But you…at least you will survive. How else could Bedouin be kept safe and taught the ways of poetry and peace to temper his brother's rage and strength? You and the Wayist, and Gemini, you will have a place in the new Nietzschean Empire. You will forge it into something beyond humanity or any cadre of genetically superior specimens. And if fortunate I…to your devotees I will be just another set of bones."

"Tyr…" Pressing a hand to his chest, she met his dark eyes and stared. "So that's why you called me here. You want me to run away from the battle, stay here with you, with Bobby. You've finally swallowed your pride and you have no idea how late it is…too late in the game."

"Ask you to remain here, with me?" Chuckling softly once more, Anasazi shook his head and turned away, expression drawn. "Why should I ask something from you I know you would never give, Captain Valentine? You know me better. But for the sake of Bedouin…I want a son who will remember his father's will yet know his mother's devotion, a child to believe in something beyond his own divinity. I want a son to see the universe as his father could never see it, learn as his father would never learn, drink happiness and dance drunk in ways and forms his father was never willing to attempt." Turning to grasp both of her hands, Tyr Anasazi pressed them firmly to his own, eyes seeking. "This time I entrust our son to you, Captain Valentine. He is the only thing of worth I have ever had to offer you, and my greatest achievement. Stay if you will, go if you must. It matters very little in the end, I won't be returning from this battle."  Stepping back, Anasazi squared weary shoulders. "And if that constitutes swallowing one's pride I can honestly remark that I feel the lighter for it."

"You son of a bitch."

"One of the better variety of breeders, fortunately…we share that gift, I believe." Striding towards the grand doorway, he turned once more to meet her gaze. "Will you take the responsibility? Will you take our son far away from this place and far away from Dylan Hunt's place; allow him to grow free and laughing, unhampered by war and manipulation? Will you prepare him for the day when those things must meet once more with his destiny, for the day when Bedouin out of Rebekah by Anasazi must fight for the empire I so blindly shaped around his brother? Can you do that for me, Captain Valentine? Can you do that for all of us?"

After a long moment of thoughtful staring, she nodded slowly, moving to kneel beside the small sleeping figure. "I can give it my best shot."

"Yes." Tyr agreed softly, turning the door handle and letting in a swathe of burning desert sunlight. "Well enough." A small smile passed his lips as he motioned widely around him. "This place is safe. No one in the known universe aside from we three and my wife Jorja know of it. Stay as long as you need. But do not stay forever, and do not invite any of our friends from the Andromeda here."

"We'll be gone by first light. I don't know where…but, uh…we'll be on our way. You're going to battle now."

"I've set my last request, why should I not?"

"You were always one for understatement." Moving forward, she removed his hand from the door knob, wrapping her own in it as she leaned up to brush his ear with her lips. "Get out of my life, Anasazi."

"Goodbye, Captain Valentine." Shaking his head, the Nietzschean headed out into the daylight and to the war waiting. Gaze centering on the sleek fighter craft lay out on the makeshift runway and the redhead standing proudly by its side, he did not look back as the heavy doors slammed shut. 

Heat blazed through every pore of his body and the stiffness of joints seemed to dissipate somewhat….in the face of the most promising dawn he had ever witnessed, Tyr Anasazi laughed.

FIN


End file.
